per mutatio…

In art nouveau, and particularly the work of Alphonse Mucha, we frequently see an arc of ever-smaller circles around both sides of a round frame. Mr. Mucha found this structure fascinating and, I must admit, I do as well. I won’t go as far as to suggest it counts as part of sacred geometry (either for myself of for Mr. Mucha). But it is very appealing to my aesthetic.

In mathematics, such a figure is called either a Pappus chain or Steiner chain – depending on specific tangency. I’m certain it has a name in art world but I haven’t rediscovered the term (yet).

As you may have seen in previous posts to this blog, I am creating sculpture and art in addition to written fiction. The Star Trek-inspired novel¹ on which I am in progress has introduced a sister muse. The television series and motion pictures showed us very little Vulcan art. Much as I might prefer otherwise, I do understand that Vulcan culture is not the main point of Star Trek. But it is the emphasis you’ll find on The Taan Shop².

Just this week I was able to blend two examples of Vulcan art and symbolism (the IDIC and the coffin-shaped chime/gong) with the Mucha crescent. The words shown are kau and yeht – wise and true, respectively.

Pandora’s Pets are creatures of expressed emotion. The items presented on The Taan Shop could count as the opposite. Or maybe not. Fans of Star Trek know that Vulcans embrace logic. We know from the salute of “Live long and prosper” and the philosophy of “Infinite diversity in infinite combination” that their perspective is more nuanced than commonly thought. It seems more likely that the Pets and the ta’an are two sides of the same flag.

Both projects are evolving and I feel they should. You are invited to pay a visit.

¹ “All We Now Hold True”
² More accurately, the Vulcan word for gift would be transliterated as ta’an but that would confuse the URL.

Note: The Vulcan font was designed and provided in beta form by Britton Watkins. He is the developer and director of conlanging, a documentary on the art of making fictional languages and writing systems.